


Not a Date

by TrinesRUs



Category: Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Bisexual Character, F/F, accepting family, discussed homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 13:13:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3411911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrinesRUs/pseuds/TrinesRUs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a universe where "Small Blessings" happened differently, Dani and Hayley fall for each other. If only Dani weren't so reluctant to start something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Date

            “Kade, Dani and Blades have it _handled_ ,” Heatwave growls.

            “Handled _nothing_. If I swoop in and save Hayley, she’ll _have_ to go on a date with me. Now, move!” Kade twists the steering wheel insistently.

            The fire truck screeches a turn as directed, but not by choice. Heatwave curses their vehicle modes allowing the humans even an ounce of control and transforms back into root mode. His partner starts banging on his windshield and shouting something, but Heatwave blocks it out and sits on the ground.

            “You listen to me,” the Cybertronian says. “No one is _ever_ obligated to give in to your petty wants and wishes: not me, and not this Hayley person. Dani and Blades can handle it, so Dani and Blades are going to handle it.”

~----------~

            Dani mutters under her breath. This would be easier if she could just pull the car, passenger and all, to safety, but the hook wasn’t going to keep its hold, and the woman inside—Hayley, right? that girl Kade was always going on about—was tipping dangerously over the edge. This is looking to be a multi-part adventure.

            “I’m lowering a ladder,” she says. “I’ll get it as close as I can, but then you need to grab on and climb up. Then we’ll see what we can do about your car.”

            She’s a damn good pilot. Few can compare. She can get the kind of precision some only dream about. That said, sometimes, there’s only so close even _she_ can get to a target.

            Hayley flails for the ladder, but it’s just out of her reach. Worse, the longer she takes to grab it, the more the car tilts forward, which in turn makes it harder for her to grab on.

            “Hover for me, Blades. I’m going down.” Dani ignores her partner’s alarmed squawk and unfastens her seatbelt. Soon, she’s venturing down the swinging rope ladder, tangling her legs into the end, and holding out her nearest hand to the school teacher.

            It’s agonizing minutes of Hayley and Dani reaching for each other, stretching out, before they manage to grab each other’s wrists. Dani pulls the blonde from her car and hauls her up onto the ladder. “Climb!”

            To her credit, Hayley doesn’t need to be told twice. She climbs pretty fast for a teacher in heels and a skirt (and speaking of, Dani is a mature adult and definitely does not get embarrassed when she accidentally sees up the young woman’s skirt, nope). She doesn’t even pause until she gets to the top and looks into the cockpit.

            “There’s no pilot!” she cries.

            Dani curses internally. “He’s a very advanced piece of machinery. I have him in hover; he can hold position until I get back in to steer him elsewhere.” She breathes a sigh of relief when the blonde seems to accept this answer without question.

            They reel in the ladder, then try hooking the car again. When it looks like they have it, Dani starts guiding the controls lightly. “All right now, Blades, we can do this gently,” she says.

            “You named your helicopter? And you talk to it?”

            The pilot’s hands nearly slip off of the controls. “Uh, yeah. He can be such a stubborn piece of machinery, but he always seems more cooperative when I treat him right. Besides, these are more than normal vehicles, and they’re pretty special robots. Wouldn’t you think they should have names?”

            “Oh,” says Hayley. It almost looks like she’s blushing, but Dani can’t be sure. “When you put it that way, it seems reasonable. I mean, I can justify talking to my plants because it really does make them grow better, but I’m not sure I can explain away naming them, too. At least your robot is humanoid.”

            “Are you…embarrassed?” Dani has her attention on trying to make sure they can transport the wrecked car to the repair man safely, but when a long stretch passes without a response, she huffs a laugh. “You know it’s no big deal, right? It’s great that your plants mean so much to you.”

            Hayley seems to relax after that. “You think so?”

            “Yeah! I mean, if it makes you happy and doesn’t do any harm, then who should judge you but yourself?” That earns a small smile, almost like a secret.

            The teacher gives her rescuer a warm thanks when she’s eventually dropped off. Dani feels pretty nice about the encounter, but she could do without Blades’ ribbing. “What?” the helicopter-former says. “She was totally into you.”

~----------~

            The Shrink Ray Incident passes by them, as do many other rescues, and Dani barely thinks about the ride with Hayley through most of it. Aside from Blades’ initial teasing, there just isn’t a lot to remind her. She doesn’t even see Hayley herself for about a week-and-a-half after that fateful rescue.

            Unsurprisingly, it’s another rescue that brings them together again. Heatwave and Kade are occupied with a forest fire caused by some campers running away from a bear, and the emergency is on the distant side of the island where Dani and Blades are more likely to reach in time anyway. When they arrive, Hayley is dangling for her life on a fraying rope.

            Dani allows herself a second—but no longer—to analyze the situation and come up with a plan. The cliff side doesn’t allow enough space for Blades to pull up close enough unless she can bring Hayley closer somehow. She looks at the rope holding the school teacher up and worries her lip. It would be dangerous, but this is their best shot.

            “Just hold on tight, miss! We’ll get you down in a jiffy!” She inhales deeply and puts on her game face. “Alright, Blades, bring us in as close as you can get and open your canopy.”

            “Dani, what are you planning?”

            “Just hold still when we get into position. It’ll all be okay.”

            His face on the screen is worried, but he does as directed. Then, Dani leans out of her seat and shouts, “Hayley, swing as close to me as you can! I’ll catch you!”

            Each swing brings her a little closer, but it’s not quite close enough. Dani stretches out her arm as far as she can reach. Hayley reaches out back. Their fingers brush, but they can’t grab on to each other. The next swing is more forceful—too forceful: the rope snaps, and Hayley plummets. Dani latches on to her wrist just in time to stop her fall.

            Everyone lets out a sigh of relief, Blades included. From there, it’s just a matter of pulling Hayley into the cockpit, closing the canopy, and flying away.

            “You have a real talent for finding danger,” the pilot says.

            She expects the comment to be brushed off with something like Griffin Rock’s reputation for danger, but the response she receives instead is, “I just need a little adventure in my life, that’s all.”

            Dani tries to hide her surprise. “You don’t get enough adventure looking after kids? I’d think that’s when a teacher gets the most adventure. You get to play games and read fantasy books and do art and use your imagination.”

            “There’s a difference between imagining it and experiencing it.”

            The pilot is silent after that, letting the words roll around in her head. She realizes that almost everything she knows about Hayley comes from Kade, and that only gives her a very flat idea of what the woman was like: quiet, sweet, pretty (and boy, was she ever pretty)…

            “You’re right,” she says at last. “You should have every chance of experiencing the world you can get. But maybe you should try it in a slightly more controlled environment, just in case something goes wrong. If you’d like, I could start you off with water-skiing instructions?”

            Blades winks at her. Dani shuts off the screen.

            “I’d love that,” says Hayley.

            “This weekend, then? Saturday?”

            “Sure. Nine o’clock?”

            “Done.”

            They drop Hayley off in town, and then Dani and Blades are off for the Firehouse. Blades laughs the whole way down the lift to the bunker.

            “Care to let us in on the joke?” asks Heatwave, scowling.

            “Dani has a date!”

            “No, I don’t!”

            “You so do! You asked her out; she said yes! Dani has a date with _Hayley_ ,” he sing-songs, leaning down to get right into his partner’s face.

            “She _what!?_ ” snaps Kade. He looks shocked and devastated.

            Dani puts up her hands defensively. “Whoa, hold on a second there, hothead. It is _not_ a date. Blades has the wrong idea about it. The two of us are just hanging out this weekend.”

            His face slowly clears. “Oh. Well, then, could you put in a good word for me?”

            “Not a chance on your _life_.”

            “Because you lii _iii_ iiike her,” Blades says.

            “No,” says Dani, “because if Kade had any chance with her, she would have agreed the last twenty times he asked her out.”

            Heatwave laughs. Kade shouts, “Hey!”

            “I don’t get why you can’t just admit it’s a date,” Blades continues. “Hayley’s totally interested, and you think she’s cute.”

            “Even if I said that, ‘cute’ doesn’t mean I’m interested back. It’s just…an acknowledgement of outer beauty. It means nothing.” She sees the skeptical look her partner is giving her and sighs. “Just drop it, okay? I don’t want to deal with this right now.”

~----------~

            The totally-not-a-date goes well. Spotting for Hayley means that Dani doesn’t get out on the water as much as she would like to and that they’re really only close to each other whenever Hayley falls and Dani has to dive in after her, but they’re both having a good time. They stay at the beach for hours and end up eating corndogs for lunch. Then, Dani finally gets a chance to swim, and she and Hayley end up having a splash war.

            Their towels are draped over Blades’ seats so they won’t get salt all over his interior when they head back for the day. They land on the street in front of Hayley’s house, and she puts a hand on Dani’s shoulder. The pilot feels herself starting to blush when their eyes meet.

            “Thanks for the great time. I hope when can do this again.”

            “Yeah, no problem,” Dani replies. “I had fun.”

            Her mouth is drying more the longer the hand lingers, and it only gets worse when Hayley bites her lip. She tries to swallow; tries not to look down at the soft, pink temptation of those lips. After a few seconds, Hayley slid her hand down Dani’s arm, leaving tingles in her wake, and gave her hand a quick squeeze. “I’ll see you, Dani.”

            “Soon,” the pilot promises, and she watches her not-date climb out of the helicopter and walk down the flower-lined driveway.

            “You should have kissed her!” Blades chides. Dani groans and puts her hands over her face. “I mean it, Dani,” he says. “You wanted to and she was _so_ welcoming it.”

            “I can’t.”

            “What do you mean you can’t?” he asks as they head home. “It’s easy! When two people like each other a lot in a not-friend-or-family way, in a lovey-dovey way, they kiss.”

            “It’s not that simple.”

            “Not that simple? But it’s always easy in Rom Coms.”

            “Movies aren’t real life, Blades.”

            “But it shouldn’t be _that_ different. You like her; she likes you. End of story.”

            “Not end of story. We’re both girls.”

            “And?” asks Blades, wondering how that information could possibly be relevant.

            Dani sighs and grips his controls a little tighter. “I don’t know what attitudes about gender and romance are like on Cybertron, but here, people expect men to pair with women and ignore the people who don’t fit into those categories. Two guys being together or two girls is still looked down upon, even if things are getting better.”

            Blades still looked confused. “So? Since when have you cared what other people thought?”

            “When it might actually interfere with my job—or might make the other girl in question lose hers.” She gave the screen a hard look. “Some people might not want to be rescued by someone like me, and they definitely wouldn’t want her teaching children.”

            “You’ve known this island for years. Do you really think they’d turn on you so quickly?”

            “Good point, Blades. Maybe we could tell them you’re sentient now. I’m sure that won’t throw the island into another alien panic,” she retorts.

            “…Point taken.”

            However, the thought stays with her. Is she really underestimating Griffin Rock so readily? But no, it never hurts to be cautious, right? The island counts on her to be trustworthy. But doesn’t that mean revealing her secret? No, she’s allowed to have a private life. And heck, maybe she’ll just find a man she likes. No one ever has to know she likes women, too.

            Just the idea of it makes her feel sick.

~----------~

            Their not-dates continue for about a month before Hayley asks what they are. “Because, I don’t know about you, Dani, but I like you _a lot_. I want this to be for the long-haul, or at least as far and long as we can make it.”

            “I’d like that a lot,” Dani breathes. Hayley looks relieved and leans in for a kiss. Dani holds her at bay by her shoulders. “But,” the pilot continues, “I don’t want to make you lose your job if you’re seen with me.”

            “I’m not going to lose my job,” the teacher replies. Dani looks away, and Hayley pushes her face back around. “No, look at me. I’m not going to lose my job. Look at our tech; look at our history; look at the scientists this island trusted in the thirties. Griffin Rock is a progressive place, and if anyone has a problem with us, it’s their loss.”

            “That’s the problem. I’m a rescuer. I’m trained to put others’ needs before my own.”

            “Then put yourself first once this time,” Hayley says, “or accept that people are a lot better than you think. Everything is going to be fine.”

            Dani ghosts her fingers over her lips before nodding. “Okay, I’ll try.”

            Hayley smiles and leans in slowly.

~----------~

            Dani paces back and forth in front of her family, in which she has included the Bots. She rubs her chin so much she worries she might leave a mark, and her cheek is almost bleeding from chewing its inside too much.

            “Can we get on with this?” Kade groans. “I could be watching the game right now.”

            His sister glares at him, but she finally stops her movement otherwise. When the firefighter has withered enough under her glare, she clears her throat. “Okay, here goes…I’m bi.”

            There’s a ripple of confused noises from the Bots, but she has nothing but support from the humans. “But what does it _mean?_ ” asks Blades, and the others echo him in their own style.

            “It means she’s attracted to more than one gender,” Kade answers, surprising the rest of the group. “A lot of people use it to mean two genders, hence ‘bi’ like ‘bicycle,’ but some people mean more than two genders. The point is she’s not straight.”

            “I have found that most human forms are not,” says Chase. “Most are quite curved, actually.”

            “That’s not what I meant; it’s—oh, nevermind. Congratulations, sis.”

            “You’re not mad?” Dani asks.

            “Mad that I couldn’t be with Hayley? Not anymore. Mad that you came out before I could, maybe.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m right, right? It’s Hayley that you’re doing this for?”

            “You were going to come out?” She can almost feel her jaw hanging open.

            “Maybe, eventually.” He averted his eyes. “But don’t let me steal this moment away from you. I’ll have plenty of chances to do that other times.”

            “Ha, let me see you try.”

            Later that night, she called Hayley to spread her good news. “I was thinking, for our next date,” she says, “we could try rock climbing. With more witnesses this time.”


End file.
